Simpson, Thomas (1710–1761)

English mathematician and writer who devised Simpson's rule, which simplifies the calculation of areas under graphic curves. He also worked out a formula that can be used to find the volume of any solid bounded by a ruled surface and two parallel planes.

Simpson was born in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, and was self-educated. After an eclipse of the Sun, he took up astrology and gained a reputation in the locality for divination. But after he had apparently frightened a girl into having fits by ‘raising a devil’ from her, he was obliged to flee with his wife to Derby. In 1735 or 1736 he moved to London and worked as a weaver at Spitalfields, teaching mathematics in his spare time. It was there that he published his first mathematical works, which won some acclaim. Soon after 1740 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Stockholm, and in 1743 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Academy in Woolwich, London.

Simpson's first mathematical work, in 1737, was a treatise on ‘fluxions’ (calculus). This was followed by The Nature and Laws of Chance (1740), The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions (1742), Mathematical Dissertation on a Variety of Physical and Analytical Subjects (1743), A Treatise of Algebra (1745), Elements of Geometry (1747), Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical (1748), Select Exercises in Mathematics (1752), and Miscellaneous Tracts on Some Curious Subjects in Mechanics, Physical Astronomy and Special Mathematics (1757).